Do you remember the lead up to John Carter? How most people had a big problem with the marketing but many held a faint glimmer of hope that remained until the first reel ran in theaters opening weekend. Yeah, World War Z wishes it was generating that kind of reaction.

Basically, all of the worst parts of the bible would be an upgrade over the current approval rating of the upcoming PG-13 zombie epic. The stench of the film has been brewing for years, delays and behind the scenes instability have not provided any faith of a good adaptation of a book that is already hard to envision in cinemas. The problem is the structure of the book, it is an oral history not a linear narrative, and no one understands how a Brad Pitt saves the world film was the best that could be done.

So consensus is the film will be a terrible, no good, very bad adaptation and the best we are hoping for is a fun diversion wearing a WWZ pelt for warmth. Of course this leads to all the bitching and moaning about how the film’s existence is an affront to the loyal book fans who deserve better. Well cool your jets book worms and hipster wanna bes, there is a silver lining to this story and it alone more than justifies the looming horror of the upcoming film.

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Plants vs. Zombies came out way back in 2009 for the PC and Mac from PopCap games. It would go on to be ported to iOS, XBLA, Nintendo DS, the PSN, DSiWare, Android, Windows Phone, the PlayStation Vita and then finally to the Blackberry in January of this year (also proving that BlackBerry really has no idea what they are doing). Originally titled Lawn of the Dead, Plants vs. Zombies is one of the most widely popular tower defense style games ever with a MetaCritic score of 88 to boot. So what is taking so long to get a sequel? That’s what YouTube stars like Francis and XBox community manager Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb want to know too.

With the teaser trailer below, we finally get official confirmation that Plants vs. Zombies 2 isn’t only real but that it is coming out in July of this year. Hopefully it won’t come out during Comic Con or there are going to be a lot of very confused people trying to figure out the best use of their time. Though no actual footage is shown, it is an awesome teaser that showcases how all of us feel about the wait on this title. The one the Flickcast staff seems to relate to the most is Francis.

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Earlier this week, we touched upon the Mob of the Dead portion of the Uprising DLC pack coming to XBox 360 on April 16th for Call of Duty: Black Ops II. In it, mobster movie icons Chazz Palminteri, Joe Pantoliano, Michael Madsen, and Ray Liotta take on the roles of four Alcatraz inmates getting ready to bust out only to find out an undead, demonic horde has broken in to the tightest security prison in the world.

In the trailer below, you’ll get some back-story on the fictional mobsters modeled after these stars and find out just where they fall into the prison hierarchy before everything starts going south. As with other new versions of the infamous Zombie mode, you’ll also see new zombies to deal with and traps to hatch. There is also a brief look at the new purgatory game mode as well.

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This past weekend, 32 teams of four took up arms in the ultimate XBox Call of Duty Championship. In the end, it was the team Fariko Impact that took home the gold and $400,000 cash prize. Damon “Karma” Barlow, Adam “Killa” Sloss, Marcus “MiRx,” and team captain Chris “Parasite” Duarte (collectively known as Fariko Impact) faced off against EnVyUs in the final round Sunday after the three day tournament.

Fariko Impact would emerge victorious with the winner’s share of the $1,000,000 total pot. But don’t feel too bad for EnVyUs as the second place team would walk home with $200,000 themselves and third place team OpTic Gaming taking $120,000 with them.

Also revealed this past weekend alongside the images of the new Uprising DLC Map Pack was the latest Replacer trailer. After the original Replacer was revealed, it would only be a matter of time before more Call of Duty: Black Ops II players would need to call upon the services of these men in black.

This time, original Replacer Peter Stormare is joined by J.B. Smoove. This time, as you’ll see in the trailer below, the Replacers find themselves in even more awkward scenarios, the kind it takes two people to tackle.

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Been wondering exactly what happened to the Dixon brothers before meeting up with Rick Grimes in Atlanta? Well with The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct being tied into the AMC series, you’ll get some of those answers and you can get those answers today. Out today for XBox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and the Wii U is The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. If you take a look below, you get a better idea of what to expect from this stealth FPS experience.

It is fair to say that The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct has its work cut out for it. And not even because of anything that has been seen from the game before today. It is because it will inevitably be compared to Telltale’s The Walking Dead adventure game. Despite being different in almost every way from the art style to gameplay style and the continuity it chooses to follow, parallels will undoubtedly be drawn.

The hardest part will be people giving the game a fair shake and taking it for what it is doing which is trying to give a new experience by trying to combine stealth and FPS gameplay together while putting people in the world of the TV series they have become so invested in. (Hopefully Andrea doesn’t show up until the absolute end.)

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Mention the word zombies in a room of gamers and two franchises instantly come to mind. Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead. While other zombie franchises have tried to claw their way to the top, these two from Capcom and Valve respectively sit atop the zombie food chain. With Capcom’s recent affinity for crossing over franchises with other publishers, it is great to see that they have come together with Valve to enable the Resident Evil 6 x Left 4 Dead 2 project.

In a completely free download, Resident Evil 6 PC players will be able to experience a new mode, “The Mercenaries No Mercy” featuring Left 4 Dead 2′s signature cast – Coach, Nick, Ellis and Rochelle – as playable characters. Each will have a custom weapon load-out for the mode. Also making their debut to the Resident Evil world alongside the foursome of survivors are going to be the Witch and the Minitank. This mode will be going live on April 5th.

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Call of Duty: Black Ops II is addicting. Between the standard competitive multiplayer and the Zombie mode, thousands of lifetimes of game hours have already been played online. Now while the game doesn’t exactly go into a slump over time after its release, there is definitely a renewed spike in gameplay with the release of new maps.

Things may have been a little different last year with the early access that Elite members received in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 but with Call of Duty: Black Ops II Season Pass holders and the general public gaining access to the new maps at the same time, expect servers to fill up and social lives to diminish. But how do you help salvage social relationships with friends, family, work and significant others? Activision says it’s time to call in a Replacer.

In the video below, you’ll check out the real benefit of taking on a Replacer. For those moments that you don’t really need to be there for like putting together furniture or the first few annoying hours of labor, a Replacer is the ideal substitute.

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In under two months, more than 427 million hours have been logged into Call of Duty: Black Ops II multiplayer and zombie modes. At this point, it is reasonable for players to be clamoring for some new content. Treyarch has responded with a resounding, “It’s coming!” with the the Revolution DLC pack (which had some tidbits leaked late last week). The Revloution DLC pack will be coming out first to XBox 360 on January 29.

The Revolution DLC pack will include four new multiplayer maps, a new zombie map, the first new zombie DLC mode and the first ever DLC weapon. Check out the level descriptions below as well as the full preview trailer after the jump.

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In 2011, there was an incredibly close race between Batman: Arkham City and Portal 2 between team Bitcast for the Game of the Year award with Portal 2 coming out on top. This year, the conversation went a lot smoother.

While there were lots of games that got our attention to be nominated, there was one game that stood out amongst the crowd as the clear favorite on The Flickcast. Dishonored, Far Cry 3, Journey, Unfinished Swan, Borderlands 2, Mass Effect 3, Slender were all great innovations in gaming in 2012 and all garnered huge followings. But there is one game that proved it was special to people on so many levels that when it came time to cast the final ballot on game of the year, it was a no brainer for the both of us.

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Don’t worry. We aren’t giving any more awards to Angry Birds. At least not today. But we do have four more games for the best of 2012. If you haven’t seen the previous two days awards, click here for Monday’s and here for Tuesday’s awards. Make sure to check back tomorrow for our final specialty awards and then again on Friday for the ultimate award from The Flickcast and Bitcast teams, the Game of the Year.

New IP With the Most Potential – Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

With writing from R. A. Salvatore and art design by Todd McFarlane, many would have thought that Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning would have the makings of a surefire hit. With over 300,000 units sold by March of 2012, Reckoning gave a good showing for a brand new IP and had many people talking about it. Unfortunately due to financial problems with a loan from the state of Rhodes Island, 38 Studios was forced to close and with it went the possible future of the Kingdoms of Amalur series.

Despite coming from a brand new studio, Reckoning had all the makings of a hit game. Beautiful design, interesting and complex story with tons of back matter and, the most important, incredibly fun combat and gameplay. It was a huge world with tons to do that players could get lost in. Whether or not they even cared about the narrative, there were unending areas to explore and enemies to vanquish. Now, one can only hope that someone else picks up this IP and gives it a second chance to continue giving more people the chance to explore its epic world.

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Already got your fill of everything in Call of Duty: Black Ops II in the month that it has been out? Well, your bullet hungry prayers have been answered with the first piece of content coming out today for Call of Duty: Black Ops II Season Pass owners. For the discounted price of $49.99, Season Pass holders will get four DLC Map packs as well as the Nuketown 2025 Zombie map which goes live today on XBox 360.

The Nuketown 2025 Zombie map doesn’t just throw players into the bright, 50′s retro stylized suburbia that players have already experienced in Call of Duty multiplayer. Instead, they see the post apocalyptic version of the map. While the basic floor plan has stayed the same, the buildings are in ruins giving zombies tons of access points to the players. In addition, the burnt out mannequins are just creepy as hell.

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Almost a week has passed since The Walking Dead season 3 reached its midseason finale. On that night, Twitter and Facebook were filled with posts of people asking what to do with their Sunday nights now that they are forced to wait until February for the show to return. Well, there’s no reason for fans of The Walking Dead to be stuck watching the previous seasons (or doing something really crazy like going outside) as Robert Kirkman and the rest of the team behind The Walking Dead have put out tons of other materials that both set up the story and characters of the show and/or went off in their own directions.

The Walking Dead Vol. 1 – 17

It’s where it all started. Over the course of 102 issues, The Walking Dead has taken readers through a rollercoaster of emotions. They have seen Rick and his ever changing band of survivors try to deal with a world that can never go back to what it once was.

While viewers of the show may witness some similar instances, they will also see how two different stories have been able to be told about the same essential concept. One of the things that keeps drawing readers back is the idea that really no one is safe and characters that they fall in love with end up becoming the biggest tragedies.

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Say what you will about Spike’s Video Game Awards and their choices of winning titles, but it is one of the places to see the premiere trailers for some of the biggest games of the following year. Six months separated from E3, the VGAs are the biggest nationally televisions gaming event in the latter half of the year in the US. As a result, games that were quiet during E3 get revived interest while other games that were spotlighted at E3 get one last big push before their releases early in the next year.

So far, Spike has revealed three teasers for game’s that will be getting the ultimate spotlight on this year’s VGAs. Gears of War: Judgment will be coming to the VGAs only six months after its E3 announcement and will focus on the character Baird in the early parts of the Locust War. The Last of Us actually made its debut at last year’s VGAs and quickly grew a rabid fan base. Coming from the same studio that brought us Uncharted, The Last of Us has an intense blend of action and survival in an apocalyptic setting while also focusing on the relationship between its two diverse main characters. Finally, after a plethora of delays, Bioshock Infinite will make its way to the VGAs to help prepare for its February 2013 launch.

Check out all the teasers below after the jump and catch the Spike Video Game Awards on Friday night, December 7th at 9 PM on Spike TV.

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Now, I’m not going to come on here and pretend I know what every geek in your life is going to want. But if they are anything like me, there is at least something on here that they do want.

The nice thing is that even if they already have it (or you picked the one thing on this list they actually hate), every item is coming from a store they will be able to return it to and buy something they do want.

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It’s the announcement that pretty much everyone knew was coming. With a second game based on The Walking Dead (this time off of the hit AMC TV series) due out in 2013 and being based on the characters of Daryl and Merle Dixon, it’d be downright silly of Activision to put out this game without the duo of Normal Reedus and Michael Rooker lending their likenesses and voices to The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. Activision knows this as their PR has stated that “Their addition is central to developer Terminal Reality’s commitment to delivering an engrossing, original experience that stays authentic to the characters, tone and storyline of the series.” Rooker actually recently lent his vocal talents to a little game called Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

In the game, players assume the role of the mysterious, crossbow-wielding survivor Daryl Dixon. This first-person survival title takes place within the universe of “The Walking Dead” and before the events of the AMC show, following Daryl and his brother Merle on a gruesome journey to reach the supposed safety of Atlanta as the world around them ends. Reedus and Rooker will bring life to their characters’ desperate, unforgiving struggle against limited resources, the nightmarish walkers and, perhaps, their fellow survivors…

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The Call of Duty series is the gaming industry’s equivelent of a Michael Bay summer blockbuster film. While the story might be slightly convoluted, millions of people flock to it and spend their hard earned money on a explosion filled, high octane, testosterone laced good time. In addition to the campaign, Call of Duty: Black Ops II includes both the standard mutliplayer and the Zombie mode from Treyarch which has given the studio something for people to remember them by.

It’s no surprise that Black Ops II had huge midnight launches at over a thousand locations across the country but lines of people don’t necessarily ensure a game will live up to the hype. But, Treyarch continues to prove why they are trusted with such a franchise.

The Long

First and foremost, regardless of anything else in the game, Call of Duty: Black Ops II captures shooter gameplay and control on a console at its finest. Everything from movement to aiming and shooting to damage detection all feel perfect in Black Ops II. The default control scheme is perfect for the genre and everything really just fits perfectly into place (at least on the XBox 360 controller) for the FPS experience. If you stripped down the graphics and setting, the engine behind Call of Duty: Black Ops II would still be an ideal shooter.

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